1. Is there evidence that they've actually incited hatred and violence? If so, then they've violated the law. If there's no such evidence, then what justification would you use now?
2. Where's the evidence that hatred and violence are spreading?
3. Where's your evidence that censoring is successful in "stemming the spread of hatred and violence"?
Except the videos of Watson aren't spreading hate or violence but he is just another person with an opinion. Because it's unpopular opinion and because he worked with Infowars in the past it's easy to make him into the "bad guy".
So will CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews, etc. finally be de-platformed for "Weapons of Mass Destruction". This has caused actual destruction in terms of trillions of dollars, thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's lives and the rise of ISIS with massive destruction in the middle east.
A trove of emails between Steve Bannon, Breitbart, Milo and I think Paul Joseph Watson were released a while ago. In those emails Bannon instructs Milo/etc to target specific groups. There were multiple instances of this throughout the emails.
They were coordinating and planning to falsely target groups with their hate speech, With the full knowledge that their targeting would cause repercussions in the real world.
I lost a friend to the Breitbart "prison planet", etc toxic sludge dump. He started sending me picture of people in tinfoil hats marked with "CNN", "NSA" and such.
Then he started sending me videos about aliens babies (birth defects) and flat earth. Finally he went full out racist, with muslim crusade theories.
Even to the point of telling me a city in Sweden was overrun with Muslims and a white man couldn't walk down the street safely. I have a friend living in that exact city, so I offered him a video chat with him. His immediate quote was "Your friend doesn't know what he's talking about".
Some people go farther and shoot up people in mosques, or churches. And Alex Jones, Steven Bannon, Milo, PJW, etc knowing planned for these ends to happen. We just don't have the legal means to hold them accountable.
So yes, these people are dangerous. Very dangerous, in the same way that Julius Streicher (Publisher of Der Stürmer before WWII) was. Streicher was tried at the Nuremberg trials and hung. Streicher was found guilty because he continued knowingly publishing outright falsehoods and hate speech in Der Stürmer after he was aware they were false.
Hopefully that precident can be used against the current crop of hate-mongers at some point.
Sorry for feeding the trolls in this thread.
Edit: Even after Julius Steicher was found guilty at the Nuremberg trials and executed, Andrew Anglin thought it was a good idea to resurrect it as "the daily stormer". If that doesn't raise the hairs on the back of your neck I don't know what will.
> In those emails Bannon instructs Milo/etc to target specific groups. There were multiple instances of this throughout the emails.
I suppose you mean the Breitbart emails. Targeting groups would not surprise me, they obviously have an agenda and bias, like most organizations. The real question is whether these same emails actually suggest that they don't believe the propaganda they published, and that they're just doing it to fulfill ulterior motives.
Edit: I see now you added considerably more text. Sorry to hear about your friend, but I don't see how Breitbart is any worse in principle than hocking crystals and astrology (and I know people who have stopped meds from this kind of influence). As long as they are not directly inciting violence, we should be policing actions not words.
You're suggesting Julius Steicher shouldn't have been charged in the Nuremberg trials?
There is a direct comparison to the actions taken leading up to and during WWII and now. It's the exact same material being published again.
In fact in some cases it's literally the exact same "Jew pulling puppet strings of <X> from above" posters/ads as were in WWII. You can look up some of the ads Brexit leave campaigns have put out.
There absolutely is a direct plan to incite violence, check the emails. These guys just know if they don't directly say it they're not accountable.
> You're suggesting Julius Steicher shouldn't have been charged in the Nuremberg trials?
If Breitbart and Bannon were acting solely at the direction of white supremacists or neo-Nazis, and so the ultimate agenda of ethnocleansing were clear, that's a totally different scenario. There's no need for charity or a presumption of innocence. The summaries of the emails I've read suggest that isn't the case.
> There absolutely is a direct plan to incite violence, check the emails.
I'd love to, but googling doesn't seem to turn up anything but comments and summaries. Given the emotionally charged nature of this topic, I'd prefer to read the source myself. If you have a link please share.
> And of course a video of Bannon laying things out
Sounds like he's laying out a campaign strategy. Again the question is whether he actually believes in it, or if he's pushing this agenda for ulterior motives.
An agent whose goal is to spread hate and misinformation is probably the best description of mass media from the days of Hearst onward, so you're not wrong.
There is a difference though. Uncritically amplifying the misinformation of the Bush administration with respect to Iraq having WMDs and doing no investigation on it is not making a mistake.
If Facebook is going to stop uncritically amplifying the misinformation and fear spread by those they banned then to be consistent that should equally apply to the journalistic organizations that spread misinformation and fear with respect to WMDs in Iraq.
a) Deplatforming should never be used for revenge, but to prevent bad outcomes in the future. You seem to entirely focus on the past instead of arguing for it to have any future benefit. Incidentally, "by now everyone knows it's satire" is one of the better arguments against banning infowars and milo nowadays seems unable to get enough of an audience to make a profit. Thus recent actions happening only now can easily be seen more as virtue signaling than effective deplatforming. But i guess better late than never.
b) It is only possible to deplatform small parties. Wanting to deplatform the US president or the largest media network in the US (or in your case all of them) is unreasonable.
